Menindee water releases 'sheer stupidity'

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority is increasing the amount of water it is releasing from the Menindee Lakes.

From tomorrow, 4,000 megalitres of water a day will be released - up from 3,600 megalitres.

State Member for Murray-Darling John Williams, who represents the area, has described the decision as "absolute and sheer stupidity".

He says the MDBA should find a new way to transfer water to South Australia instead of taking it from the Menindee Lakes.

He says the the authority treats the Darling River like a pipeline, when in fact a lot of water as it flows from the lakes and into South Australia.

"It's a very inefficient course for water to be transferred on, and that becomes obvious once you see a challenge like the type of floods we have had in the past and just how wide that river runs," Mr Williams said.

"It's not really an efficient way to transfer water from one area to another."

The executive director of river management with the MDBA, David Dreverman, says most of that water will be taken out of Lakes Menindee and Cawndilla.

"That volume of water is used to provide flow to South Australia in accordance with its entitlements under the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement, and we use the water preferentially from Menindee because if we leave it in Menindee and it sits in there for a dry year, most of that water would otherwise evaporate," Mr Dreverman said.

The MDBA says expected flows from flooding in northern New South Wales and Queensland will be used to fill Lakes Wetherell and Pamamaroo.

It is expected flows reach the lakes later this month.

Mr Dreverman says that new water will not slow the releases.

"They take sometimes six to eight weeks from when we get the rainfall in the Queensland catchments until that water is all into Menindee," he said.

"That water will be all used to fill lake Wetherell and Pamamaroo, which are the first two lakes in the system, and bring them back towards full. And the water that we're taking at the moment, we're taking as much as we can from Menindee and Cawndilla."